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IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY - The community of Cambridge Bay is developing a new familiarity with local artifacts through the hands-on process of replicating excavated objects.

This past December, 12 people of all ages from the community participated in an artifact casting workshop at Kiilinik high school.

Amy Pike removes the foam from the plaster casts of artifacts found around Cambridge Bay. - photo courtesy of Brendan Griebel

After being taught how to handle the fragile artifacts, the participants made impressions of them in memory foam and filled them with plaster. Once casted and assembled, the replicas were painted to match the original objects.

“I did some tool-making and some other stuff,” said Grade 8 student Chelsea Kavanna. “It was a lot of fun making the artifacts and learning about how they were made.”

One of the neatest aspects of the workshop was working with artifacts that have great significance to local elders, she said.

“I think it was interesting because some of our elders know some of those tools,” Kavanna said.

The group cast an array of objects, all of which were found on the outskirts of Cambridge Bay in a archaeological excavation last summer led by Dr. Max Friesen of the University of Toronto.

Since the excavation, the university’s Brendan Griebel has been looking for ways in which the community can interact with the project's findings.

After negotiating the return of the artifacts, he sought the assistance of Terry Pamplin, an exhibit consultant from the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, to facilitate the three-day casting workshop.

“While it has become commonplace for museums and cultural historical research to promote the ‘Inuit voice,’ they often forget about the need to physically involve local individuals,” said Griebel. “With the prospect of Nunavut having its own territorial museum gradually becoming a reality, I think that it is important to ensure that Inuit people have the technical qualifications and specialized skills that will allow them to interact with public displays of Nunavut’s culture and history as actors, rather than audience.”

The workshop is just the first phase of a collaborative project with the Kitikmeot Heritage Society “to introduce the Cambridge Bay community to the various dynamics of heritage management,” Griebel added.

The next phase is expected to involve artifacts from an earlier excavation of the Pembroke site outside of Cambridge Bay.

“We have been in contact with the Canadian Museum of Civilization about possibly replicating these through a more sophisticated technique of fiberglass casting,” said Griebel. “A final workshop will bring Terry back to instruct participants in the techniques of museum exhibit design, generating new displays about the Pembroke site for the Kiilinik school and local cultural centre using the cast replicas.”

Local elders had also been involved with the excavation work, helping the archeologists understand and interpret the artifacts that were discovered.

The community had “a chance to access, contemplate and contribute knowledge regarding collections of materials linked directly to their own ancestors and cultural heritage,” said Griebel.